Black Flagged Redux

Chapter 16





12:30 PM

Palermo Soho Barrio

Buenos Aires, Argentina





Daniel brushed his bare feet against Jessica's leg and sipped his steaming cappuccino. She wore a bright floral long-sleeved dress, dominated by yellows and mellowed by dark orange and brown tones. Against her dark skin, the dress added to the exotic look she had carefully cultivated since they embarked on their journey south. Every time they "vacationed" to Buenos Aires, she scheduled a visit to her favorite beauty spa and had her hair dyed straight black. This was how he figured out that she had started to sneak away to Buenos Aires on her own, while he was out in the field for extended periods of time, honing the skills of Black Flag's most promising snipers. Of course, even if he hadn't noticed the jet black hair, he had a legion of stool pigeons waiting to inform him that Jessica had run off for the weekend. There was zero privacy out at Sanderson's compound, which was why they relished these trips together.

He stared over his book at her, moving his foot slowly up her calf. She still looked and felt tense, which was unusual for her once they got away from the compound for a few days. He could tell she had something big on her mind and was waiting for the right moment to spring it on him. Everything had been slightly off over the past three days. Their conversation, lovemaking, dancing…all of it felt a little forced, and he could barely stand the suspense. A million possibilities ran though his head, most of them bad, because this was how he naturally approached any problem—from the negative side. Anything positive was a surprise. This pessimism was a natural extension of his practical nature, so he braced for the worst case scenario, which wasn't really well defined in his head. When it came to Jessica, he often had no idea what was coming next, so he usually waited. This time, however, he couldn't stand it anymore. She was ruining a fantastic brunch with her stuffy silence.

"All right, you win, sweetie…I can't take it anymore. What's going on?"

"What do you mean?" she said, placing her mimosa down on the wrought iron table.

"I can go back to reading my book…which I only brought because I can't seem to get a word out of you. It's been a long three days, but at least I've managed to make some progress with my Blake novel."

She quit staring off into nowhere and looked straight into his eyes with a determined look. Her deep brown eyes bored straight through him, and he knew this was the big moment. She was either leaving him or she was pregnant. The latter didn't make sense, considering the amount of alcohol she had consumed over the past few days…another sign that something was out of place.

"I want out. I want us out," she said, and he wasn't sure he was relieved.

This was the worst case scenario he had expected, and deep down inside, he really wished he had kept his mouth shut. He released a long, dramatic sigh, which annoyed her based on the frown she flashed.

"We can't leave yet. We've talked about this," he said, which he knew was a weak opening.

"I know we've already talked about it. I want to talk about it again. I can't take it there anymore," she said, giving him a look that silenced a few of the tables adjacent to them at the sidewalk café.

"One more year, and we can go wherever we want. Do whatever we want. I promised him three years…"

"He made you promise three years. It was his idea, not yours. I don't trust him to keep his word. I'm the only knife instructor. You're the only sniper instructor."

"He has others that can teach marksmanship."

"You know the difference."

Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his chair and grimaced. He knew she was right to a degree. Everyone at the compound could shoot extremely well at short and medium distances, under pretty much any conditions, but Sanderson had a noticeable absence of any experienced, skilled snipers. He knew why and didn't want to share the information with Jessica. He was the only trained sniper that had survived his initial assignment with the original Black Flag program. Sanderson didn't have anyone else close to Daniel's experience level and he had been unable to procure a fully trained, experienced sniper in his new batch of trainees. Melendez had recently finished the Marine Corps sniper program, but hadn't deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan to put his skills to the test. Daniel was Sanderson's only qualified instructor for long range, concealed shooting.

"I know. I just don't know what we can do right now. I can't leave him high and dry," he offered weakly.

"Really? He didn't seem to have any hesitation leaving us high and dry a few years ago. We took the easy way out—your words—and it was a big mistake. We should have packed up and vanished. You and I both know we were manipulated. We're still being manipulated."

"We've been over this a million times. There was no way we could have predicted what he was planning, and I didn't exactly hear you argue against killing Ghani," he replied, immediately regretting his comment.

"Ghani was funding Al Qaeda, supposedly."

"That was confirmed."

"Confirmed by whom? Sanderson? A very trustworthy source," she said sarcastically.

"Look, this isn't productive. We've been down this road. What are we supposed to do?"

"I say we walk away. We have more money than either of us could ever spend…"

"I don't know about that," he said.

"Thanks for the dig," she quipped.

"I'm sorry. Seriously. I just don't know," Daniel said.

"I think we need to trust our instincts. If we had walked away from Sanderson in the first place, we wouldn't be international fugitives. We'd have normal lives, somewhere else…but it would be so much better than what we have now."

"We have each other," he said and squeezed her hand.

"I know, but Sanderson used that leverage against you once. What's to say he won't do it again? There's no reasoning with him. I'm telling you that I'm done with his program. I'm pretty sure the only way to leave is to simply vanish. You can mail him a nice card with an explanation if you feel like you owe him anything. As it stands, I don't feel like I owe him a f*cking thing. I spent over six years in Serbia, in the company of society's worst, and I never killed anyone. I had ample opportunity, and at times would have liked nothing better, but I didn't. I couldn't. I had a job to do and if I killed every man that took advantage of Zorana, or violated her, there would have been no need for NATO intervention in Belgrade. It was one of the few moral high grounds I could stand on, and Sanderson robbed me of that." Jessica’s eyes started to glisten. "I just don't know what I'm doing here…"

"That was my fault. I should never have let you do that," he said.

"You're right, you shouldn't have. But it was my idea. I could have pulled the plug on the whole thing, right up to the point where I jogged up his driveway. I knew better, but I had convinced myself that it was the best thing for both of us. Sanderson had us both under his spell, and here we are on furlough in Buenos Aires. I'm done with him, Danny. You're either with me on this, or we're done," she said and stared up at him fiercely. All the traces of a young woman about to break down crying had been quickly erased.

"I'm with you. Always. Give me a few weeks to make some arrangements."

Daniel’s beeper buzzed. He kept his cell phone turned off when he wasn't using it, and so did Jessica. Neither of them needed Sanderson eavesdropping on their conversations through some of the clever technology he kept hidden in his vault at the compound. By the look on Jessica's face, he could tell that she had formed the same thought about the coincidence of the beeper's timing. With Sanderson, they just never knew.

"Your beeper?" she said, shaking her head.

"Makes you wonder," he said and took his cell phone out of the cargo pocket of his khaki shorts.

He dialed the number on the beeper, which he recognized as one of Sanderson's satellite phone connections.

"Daniel. Appreciate the quick response. Sorry to do this to you, but a situation has developed, and a very good friend of ours needs some help. I'm putting you in charge of the team. I've made arrangements to have you flown directly to an airfield near the compound. I need you at the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery within the hour. It's located on the water, a few miles north of Palermo, so you should have plenty of time to pack up and get over there. Check in at the private terminal. You know the deal. Bring Jess with you, please."

"She's not going to be happy about this," he said.

"I know she won't, but she'll want to be here when you leave. It's an overseas assignment. Something right up your alley."

"Right up my alley, huh? Okay. We'll see you in a few hours." He disconnected the call. "We have to go."

"Are you f*cking kidding me? Another critical job neutralizing more of señor Galenden's competition?"

"No. This sounds different. Overseas. Let me do this job for Sanderson and I'll work on a plan when I get back. I'm with you, Jessica. I just want to do this smartly."

"Do you ever want to call me Nicole?"

"Every time I look at you," he said with no hesitation.

"I want to be Nicole again." She stood up from the café table.

"I'd really like that. You might have to be Nicola, Nicolette…or maybe Nikita," he said, tucking the bill and some cash under a salt shaker on the table.

"La Femme Nikita? I don't think so. Danny, don't look now, but a guy in Mama Gracha's just took a picture of us…I think. He used a small camera or a phone."

"It's on our way back to the apartment, so why don't we casually stroll past and take a closer look," he said.

"Sounds good," she said and leaned over to kiss him and grab his hand.

Daniel and Jessica navigated through crowded tables of the large sidewalk café. It appeared that most of Buenos Aires awoke with the same idea. To take advantage of an unusually warm late April day before the temperatures dropped significantly in May. They hadn't passed a single empty table on their walk to the plaza and had endured a thirty-minute wait to enjoy their favorite brunch spot. Although it was possible to enjoy breakfast outside all year round in Buenos Aires if properly dressed, most locals crowded indoors during the winter months, emerging only on the occasional day when the temperatures rose temptingly into the seventies.

Leaving the restaurant's patio, Daniel felt a little exposed as they crossed the empty street and stepped onto the sidewalk adjacent to the small coffee shop. A few crowded tables lined the café's windows, but most of the business was conducted indoors.

Mama Gracha's was an iconic coffee shop, famous for high end coffee and amazing French pastries. Normally a favorite of Jessica's, they had opted for a heartier brunch across the street, where they could soak in the sun and ingest some solid food to counter the effects of a mild hangover. They had danced at a nearby disco until two in the morning, and neither one of them had tempered their drink consumption. Jessica had been on a tear with sangria all evening, and Daniel had surrendered to the multiple pitchers brought their way. They had slept until eleven and awoken with splitting headaches, which no doubt added to the tension this morning.

As they walked by the window, Daniel spotted the man that had piqued Jessica's interest. He was definitely European, but he dressed like someone who had been here a while: polo shirt and khaki pants. His outfit wouldn't have garnered a second glance on any of these streets. He was likely one of the multitude of permanent immigrants that had recently flocked to Buenos Aires. He looked Balkan…possibly Serbian, but that wasn't unusual in this city. Buenos Aires was home to one of the fastest growing Serbian immigrant populations in the world, which was another reason for them to leave. The Serbian community was tight, and fewer worlds were more closely connected. Add that to the surprisingly small percentage of former Serbian paramilitary members still in custody, and they were always watching their backs in Buenos Aires. Daniel risked another glance.

The man in the coffee shop fiddled with his phone as they passed the window. He never looked up from the device, even while he sipped coffee. For Daniel, the man didn't raise any alarms.

"Maybe just taking a picture of the square. I don't know. Let's take the long way back, just in case."

"A stroll with my husband…punctuated by a random sprint at some point. Fabulous. Glad I didn't wear sandals with heels," she said.

"You know you love me," he said.

"Am I that easy to read?" she replied, squeezing his arm tighter.

"Hardly."

They turned down a side road taking them away from their high-rise three blocks away. Neither of them saw the second man leave an outdoor table on the other side of the plaza and walk in their direction.



**



Enrique Melendez sighed in the back seat of their rental car. Parked on Nicaragua Street, the off-white, four-door sedan sported a few random dents and scratches, which placed the car right at home on the tight streets, where fitting into a parking space often relied on a driver's willingness to accept collateral damage. Munoz sat in the driver's seat, sipping tepid coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Melendez was sure of this because his own cup had long ago reached room temperature. He had jammed it into one of the cup holders to resist any further temptation to sip the disgusting liquid that their hotel claimed was coffee.

"So, what do you have?" Munoz said.

"They're drinking better coffee than we are…that's for sure," Melendez said, huddled low and staring through a portable hand spotting scope.

"Jesus Christ. We've been off the compound for three days, and you're a food connoisseur," Munoz said.

"I drank good coffee before Argentina. The hotel shit is worse than Sanderson's coffee. You'd think the coffee would be better…at least better than what we have back at camp," he said.

"All the coffee down here is shit," Munoz said.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's just our hotel," Melendez said, snapping a picture through the camera he had been staring through for nearly an hour and a half.

"Actually, it's shit almost everywhere. Right now, it's very likely that Jessica and Daniel are drinking shitty coffee. You see the café across the street? Mama Gracha's? That place has good coffee, because they import the expensive stuff from somewhere else. Argentinian coffee is notoriously bitter and watery because most of their beans are sugar roasted."

"Why would they sugar roast the beans?"

"Most of their beans come from Brazil, which produces nearly two thirds of the world's coffee, but sells the lower quality beans to Argentina and Chile. The rest is consumed by Brazilians or exported to the big operations like Starbucks, Lavazza and Illy. The beans are sugar roasted to conceal the bad quality, and in some cases, to cut the expensive stuff they're forced to buy. Sugar can account for about a quarter of the weight of a batch," Munoz said.

"They cut it like coke?"

"More or less. In this city, if a coffee shop isn't using Lavazza or Illy, it'll taste worse than Sanderson's shit. I make sure he imports the proper coffee for each group. Be glad you're assigned to the South American team…you can imagine the kind of mud the Russian team is pouring down their throats," Munoz said.

"Maybe I shouldn't complain. How do you know so much about coffee?"

"I owned a string of coffee shops in Hartford before all of this started," Munoz said, and Melendez sensed a hesitation.

"Do you miss it?"

"Miss what?" Munoz said, taking another sip of his cold coffee.

"The coffee shops. That kind of life," he said.

"I didn't really have much of a choice in the matter," he said.

Melendez could see that he didn't want to discuss it any further, so he focused on Jessica and Daniel, neither of whom frowned with every sip of the terrible coffee Munoz had convinced him they must be drinking. Three days of stale bagels, takeout sandwiches and bottled water was starting to wear thin on Melendez, though he knew he really had nothing to complain about. He'd allowed himself to get excited about the prospect of hanging out in Buenos Aires. Savory local foods, good coffee, exotic women, nightclubs, swank bistros…he’d let his imagination get the best of him and had instead spent the past few days watching the Petroviches enjoy the fruits of his limitless imagination.

Stakeout work had turned out to be grueling in terms of boredom and vigilance. The biggest rush so far had been carrying a compact concealed handgun at all times and Munoz's insistence that he bring his RPA "Rangemaster Standby" sniper rifle to the car when they were mobile.

The Rangemaster was a British-designed, compact urban system, measuring twenty-eight inches with the stock folded, and easily stowed in a gym bag. The barrel was significantly shorter than a standard sniper rifle, trading longer range accuracy for urban maneuverability, but remaining extremely lethal in the right hands. Melendez possessed a pair of those hands. If their rental car had been equipped with tinted rear windows, he could practice sighting and dry-firing from inside the vehicle. That might make things a little more interesting for him.

"I think we should use a van if we have to do this again. At least a mini-van with tinted windows. I feel pretty conspicuous staring through this camera in front of people walking by."

"Don't worry about it. It's more normal on these streets than you might think. Nobody knows if we’re cops, PI's or worse. Even better, nobody cares. Everyone just minds their own business, and as long as the scope isn't on them, they don't care. Even the cops don't give it a second glance," he said, and his cell phone started to vibrate.

"Sanderson," Munoz grunted and answered the call.

"Munoz."

He listened for a few seconds.

"I understand. We'll be at the airport in ten minutes."

"That's it?" Melendez said.

"Correctomundo, amigo. Otra vez…hablamos solamente español," Munoz said in a thick dialect.

"I don't think correctamundo is español," Melendez said.

"I was just testing your skills. Pack up the camera. We need to be at the airport ten minutes ago. Sanderson has a flight waiting for us that leaves ahead of theirs," Munoz said.

"They're heading back, too?"

"Si, señor. Something's up," he said.

The car pulled slowly out of the spot and accelerated down the street, covering the one city block distance in a few seconds. They passed the Petroviches just as they both stood up from the table. Neither of them looked up at the unremarkable car passing by, and even if they had, they would not have recognized Munoz with a mustache and thick, wavy black hair. He normally kept a close-cropped appearance at the compound, and experience had taught him that all he had to do among an ethnically similar group was alter his appearance enough to change the general impression of the observer. As a dark skinned Latino, he could melt into most crowds here in Argentina. Even among the Italians, he would barely raise an eyebrow.

Melendez decided to lay flat on the seat as they passed the plaza. A passenger sitting in the back seat of a crappy car would attract a second glance anywhere, especially since their car was not a taxi. He stayed low for another block, until Munoz told him they were clear. On the way down Nicaragua Street, they passed their hotel without stopping. They had each brought a small duffel bag of clothing and essentials, which they kept in the car. The only things they would leave behind were a few toothbrushes. Melendez relaxed in the back seat and felt some relief that they were leaving. It sounded like this would be a regular gig for the two of them, so he made a mental note to bring a large thermos, his French press, and a one pound bag of Italian roast for the next trip.